Obama/McCain: All under the bus
Posted: Friday, June 13, 2008 9:25 AM by Domenico Montanaro
On McCain criticizing now the choice of Eric Holder on his veep search committee, the Boston Globe writes, “At this rate, only Caroline Kennedy will be safe.” McCain on Holder: "Mr. Holder recommended a pardon for Mr. Rich, and all of those things should be taken into consideration by the media and the American people. Especially when you are entrusting these individuals with one of the most important decisions that a presidential candidate can make before he’s elected, and that is who his running mate is."
Speaking of Caroline Kennedy… AP profiles the third member of Obama’s veep team. “As part of Barack Obama's vice presidential search team, Kennedy must function with the utmost secrecy in what is sure to be one of the most closely watched endeavors of this year's presidential campaign. The daughter of President Kennedy has sought and treasured privacy since her father's assassination in 1963.”
VIDEO: Radio talk show host Rachel Maddow talks about how lobbyist connections forced the resignation of Jim Johnson from Barack Obama's V.P. search committee and Arthur Culvahouse, the head of John McCain's V.P. search committee whi actually is a lobbyist.
“…Republican activists scored the bigger win this week when they forced a top Obama adviser to step down,” AP writes. “They are vowing to use it as a blueprint to hammer Obama on other issues.... Their carpet bombing cleared the way for McCain to jump in Thursday, when reporters in Boston asked him about Johnson and Holder. …McCain's surrogates may have had the better week because of Johnson's resignation. But Obama's friends are bringing new firepower to his hometown of Chicago, where his campaign is headquartered. The Democratic National Committee said Thursday its political and field operations are relocating there, making it easier to coordinate the effort against McCain.”
Just who helps the middle class? “The presumptive Democratic nominee will go in armed with a study that suggests that his proposals would give families making between about $38,000 and $66,000 a year an average tax cut of $1,042 -- three times more than the $319 in savings they would get from the tax cut plans of Republican John McCain.
“The savings in 2009 would be closer for families making between $66,000 and $112,000 a year -- $1,290 under Obama's plan and $1,009 under McCain, according to the Tax Policy Center , a nonpartisan research initiative of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution in Washington. The biggest gap would be for the 0.1 percent of taxpayers with incomes of more than $2.9 million a year. They would pay $270,000 less under McCain, but pay $702,000 more under Obama.
The McCain campaign points out that in the same study, Obama’s tax proposal -- with all things considered -- would increase taxes on seniors on average by about 2%, even those “with incomes less than $50,000, his plan would raise taxes for almost 10 million senior households. …seniors in the bottom two quintiles of the income distribution would see an average tax cut of almost 1.0 percent of income, while those in the top quintile would experience an average tax increase equal to 3.8 percent of income. Taxes would increase by an average 9.3 percent of income for the 390,000 seniors in the top 1 percent.
“Retirees would generally benefit from few of Obama’s new tax credit proposals such as the Making Work Pay credit and the American Opportunity tax credit for education or from his expansions to the EITC or the child and dependent care credit. Instead, increases in the tax rates on capital gains and dividends would typically hurt them. In addition, because more of their income comes from capital, higher-income seniors would bear much of the burden of Obama’s corporate tax increases."
NYT covers the analysis of Obama's tax plan that seems to indicate that McCain's criticisms of it are off. "Economists of various ideological persuasions, however, view Mr. McCain’s assessment as inaccurate or exaggerated. Some question whether Mr. Obama’s tax plan can even be characterized as an increase. Some also argue that contrary to Mr. McCain’s assertions, the Democrat’s proposals, if enacted, would actually reduce taxes for the middle class -- the voters both candidates see as the key to victory.
“In a study of the candidates’ plans made public Wednesday, the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center concluded that in contrast to Mr. McCain, “Senator Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers.” The study said, “The largest tax cuts, as a share of income, would go to those at the bottom of the income distribution,” whereas “Senator McCain’s tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes.”
“Other groups that focus on tax and economic policy are preparing similar analyses, but say they regard the Tax Policy Center’s assessment as highly reliable, based on its work in the past. The study did question some of Mr. Obama’s calculations, noting, for example, that “both candidates may be overoptimistic in their revenue targets for closing tax loopholes, Obama probably more than McCain.”
The RNC, meanwhile, puts up a Web video hitting Obama on his tax stance, splicing together several of his statements -- with carnival music playing in the background -- to show he’s “confused about his own tax plan.” Note that Obama camp had used the word “confused” several times on a conference call attacking McCain on his foreign policy.
The NY Post: "Mac says Dems up to 'old' tricks." "McCain yesterday suggested that former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and other Barack Obama supporters are engaging in ageism by calling him 'confused' and 'out of touch' in a dispute over Iraq. When asked whether Kerry and other Obama surrogates were trying to paint him as too old to be president, McCain, 71, said they were. 'I'm obviously disappointed in a comment like that,' he said in Boston."
When asked about using the word “confused,” Kerry said it wasn’t about age, that there are senators older than McCain who don't make the same mistakes on foreign policy.
“In a campaign dominated by the economy and the Iraq War, the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling Thursday on detainees at Guantanamo marks a forceful reminder that John McCain promises one course and Barack Obama pledges another in picking future justices.”
The world primary: “Among those tracking the American election, greater numbers in 20 countries expressed more confidence in Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, than John McCain, the Republican candidate, to handle world affairs properly. The two contenders were tied in the U.S., Jordan and Pakistan. Obama's edge was largest in Western Europe, Australia, Japan, Tanzania and Indonesia, where he lived for a time as a child.”
